Missing the voice of Don Lancer

You do what I do for a living, you get used to a certain routine, doing things at the same time of the day, hearing the same voices.

You might say that KYW NewsRadio 1060 is the soundtrack to my life. The first thing I do every morning – even before I make coffee – is grab my portable radio and flip on KYW. I need to know what happened since I drifted off into a coma the night before. It plays on the radio in my office all day.

It has become one of the constants in a life that knows very few, only the next headline, the next story. You get to know – or at least think you do – those anonymous voices that come into your life.

A part of that is now gone. Don Lancer, a longtime voice on KYW, died yesterday. He was 68.

Oddly enough, in all the years that I listened to his voice, I had never met him, nor seen a picture of him. There was one on the KYW website yesterday with news of his death. And there was one in the paper today with his obit.

He looked exactly as I pictured him.

Don Lancer was a news guy, a throwback, I imagine a little bit like me.

Don Lancer worked at KYW for 38 years. My guess is that I likely heard that soothing voice the vast majority of those days.

According to his obit today, Don took a buyout when it became apparent that his parent company would be forced to institute layoffs if no one came forward.

I know all about layoffs, and the changes in our industry.

Don Lancer was one of those things that never changed, a constant in an ever-changing world.

He will be missed.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Like you, I will be missing Don Lancer. Although I live in flyover country(the Ozarks).Don was one of the reporters in WKBW's Halloween 1968 treatment of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. I am an old science fiction fan and have listened to WKBW's treatment of this classic story at least a hundred times. We have lost a real newsman the likes of which seem to be impossible for the schools of today to create. Don Lancer was the real McCoy.

Troy F.